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Whats his problem? (lemm.ee)
submitted 5 months ago by _carmin@lemm.ee to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 41 points 5 months ago

You know sometimes I actually straight up FORGET that Steam is run by the same company that created Half-Life?

They:

  1. identified a gradient of human wants
    (Video games exist; I want them on my computer)
  2. Created a vector for that want to be satisfied
    (Digital distribution that conveys the games I want to my computer)
  3. Stayed the FUCK OUT OF THE WAY

When you do something well, people don't notice you've done anything at all.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago

They simply did what everyone else refused to do, get out of their own way.

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[-] TommySoda@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago

Honestly, the secret is not being a publicly traded company. All the others have to make the shareholders happy while steam just does steam. If the line doesn't have to constantly go up you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you're still making profit. And if what you're doing is already working you don't need to add gimmicks or advertisements to milk it as much as you can just to appease the shareholders.

[-] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 10 points 5 months ago

Being a private company has allowed Valve to take some really big swings. Steam Deck is paying off handsomely, but it came after the relative failure of the Steam Controller, Steam Link and Steam Machines. With their software business stable, they can allow themselves to take big risks on the hardware side, learn what does and doesn't work, then try again. At a publically traded company, CEO Gabe Newell probably gets forced out long before they get to the Steam Deck.

[-] jia_tan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 months ago

Man Intel are so dumb for firing Pat. And they did it while seeing positive reviews for their second gen GPUs!

[-] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago

That's just what happens to CEOs of publicly traded companies when they have a bad year. And Intel had a really bad year in 2024. I'm certainly hoping that their GPUs become serious competition for AMD and Nvidia, because consumers win when there's robust competition. I don't think Pat's ousting had anything to do with GPUs though. The vast majority of Intel's revenue comes from CPU sales and the news there was mostly bad in 2024. The Arrow Lake launch was mostly a flop, there were all sorts of revelations about overvolting and corrosion issues in Raptor Lake (13th and 14th gen Intel Core) CPUs, broadly speaking Intel is getting spanked by AMD in the enthusiast market and AMD has also just recently taken the lead in datacenter CPU sales. Intel maintains a strong lead in corporate desktop and laptop sales, but the overall trend for their CPU business is quite negative.

One of Intel's historical strength was their vertical integration, they designed and manufactured the CPUs. However Intel lost the tech lead to TSMC quite a while ago. One of Pat's big early announcements was "IDM 2.0" ("Integrated Device Manufacturing 2.0"), which was supposed to address those problems and beef up Intel's ability to keep pace with TSMC. It suffered a lot of delays, and Intel had to outsource all Arrow Lake manufacturing to TSMC in an effort to keep pace with AMD. I'd argue that's the main reason Pat got turfed. He took a big swing to get Intel's integrated design and manufacturing strategy back on track, and for the most part did not succeed.

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[-] jonne@infosec.pub 1 points 5 months ago

Linux was also the only way to make sure Valve was viable long term. Eventually Windows was going to have an Xbox store built in and would've basically been a monopoly on PC gaming, cutting out steam altogether. I think windows now sort of does have that, but it can't compete with Steam quite yet.

[-] Natanael@infosec.pub 1 points 5 months ago

The steam controller didn't really fail, but the patent fight was a mess that took way too long (much too late disqualified patent over paddle buttons). That sucked a lot of energy out of the project. Don't forget the steam deck kept those touch pads (although with a different design)!

Steam Link IMHO also wasn't bad, but there didn't seem to be much interest in it then. (interestingly enough I think it could be recreated today in a Chromecast-like form factor)

Stream machines was definitely a big mess however, there just wasn't enough interest, too limited compatibility, the machines just wasn't versatile enough for average Joe to pay for one.

[-] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 months ago

And also not be backed by venture capital firms expecting to make infinite profits. Private or Public, if the company shareholder's only goal is to continue to receive 10% gains on their investment after already making back 20x their principal, they'll squeeze the company for all it's worth.

[-] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

Don't ask TF2 player how they feel about this meme

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 points 5 months ago

TF2 released in 2007

[-] wizzim@infosec.pub 10 points 5 months ago

I have a mixed feeling about Gabe and Valve.

While I am insanely grateful for proton (even if it was strategically important for them, they didn't do it out of kindness of heart), some other stuff disturb me:

  • Valve being so lenient on CS2 skin gambling, hurting the young people
  • A steam account being un-inheritable, making you defacto a tenant of your games
  • The 30% percent cut, stealing money from devs
  • Gabe spending his money on multiple mega yachts, like every asshole billionaire, instead of making the world a better place
  • Gabe claiming to be a libertarian, like Elon and other pieces of shit
[-] rtxn@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago
  • The 30% percent cut, stealing money from devs

Sigh. Here we go again. I'll just copy one of my older comments about that attitude.

Steam is not a parasitic middle man, it is a collection of services that would have to be provisioned and operated by the developer otherwise. The 30% cut pays for:

  • A massive infrastructure to store and deliver the game and its updates, worldwide, and at an acceptable bandwidth that Valve operates
  • A storefront that enables monetizing the game
  • The audience and discoverability that would not exist otherwise
  • The Steam API, achievements, cloud saves
  • The client itself, content management, validation, and Linux compatibility tools
  • Network and operational security
  • Also keep in mind that Steam and its services are operated by experts. A game developer would have to hire the experts or get training.

If the revenue from the cut exceeds the operational costs: it's called profitability, not theft. The world doesn't run on good vibes.

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[-] rocket_dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 months ago

The 30% percent cut, stealing money from devs

This is a pretty spicy take. Let's consider two possibilities:

  1. Game devs choose to distribute independently, and sell their game for $20. They sell 100,000 copies and make $2 million in revenue, and keep the entire $2 million.

  2. Game devs choose to distribute via Steam, promote it with a 50% off sale, it goes to the Steam front page, sells 500,000 copies at only $10 each, for a total $5 million in revenue. Steam takes $1.5 million and the devs take $3.5 million.

In scenario 2 the devs make 75% more than in scenario 1. Did Valve steal from the game devs?

[-] im_a_GDeveloper@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

I didn’t knew about he claiming to be a libertarian. Rothbard must be turning over in his grave.

[-] sensiblepuffin@lemmy.funami.tech 2 points 5 months ago

Here's the thing - Theoretically we shouldn't give a shit about his political leanings and we don't have to, because he and his company deliver a good service. I can privately think he's another asshole libertarian tech bro whose only guiding principle is "everyone should be able to do what I want, but only some people should have the money to do those things", but it doesn't change anything about Steam or Half-Life 3.

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[-] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 5 points 5 months ago

A steam account being un-inheritable, making you defacto a tenant of your games

Can’t you just give your kids your steam password ? How would they notice ?

[-] sensiblepuffin@lemmy.funami.tech 1 points 5 months ago

I'm not sure about that either - unless you really want your real name on a Steam account, you just change the password and the payment method and you should be fine, right?

[-] derpgon@programming.dev 2 points 5 months ago

You can't change the login username. That's about it. You can change the profile link, profile name, avatar and other cosmetics, and edit payment methods.

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[-] rabber@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 months ago

Not to mention his insane Porsche collection, yeah he's just another billionaire

Valve ruined my favourite game (dota) by flooding the game with ridiculous cosmetics that even change particle effects with no way to disable any of this

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[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

A steam account being un-inheritable, making you defacto a tenant of your games

This is unenforceable under US Law

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[-] Reygle@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

Does nothing? DOES NOTHING?! He spent the last few years ripping Microsoft a new a@@hole, rendering their operating system meaningless for gamers! ..but nice meme

[-] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago

Gaben has done lots of awesome shit. I fear what valve will become when he's gone.

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[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 3 points 5 months ago

Fun fact many don't know, Gabe helped create the first versions of Windows and claims he learned more at Microsoft than he ever did elsewhere (at the time). So in a way, he's transcended Windows, vs ripping it apart.

[-] fussganger@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 5 months ago

Wu wei is a polymorphic, ancient Chinese concept expressing an ideal practice of "inaction", "inexertion" or "effortless action",[a][1][2] as a state of personal harmony and free-flowing, spontaneous creative manifestation.

[-] dipcart@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

Just my two cents but as others have said, not being publically traded helps a lot. The focus on short term benefits that come with shareholders stops "master plans" when they come with mistakes. Learning from relative failures, like the steam controller and the like, ultimately contributes to major successes like the steam deck. Being able to stay committed to improving the software experience over time, instead of killing the product when it didn't immediately succeed, is fairly rare in the tech industry. And in all honesty, it would be better if they released a polished profuct, but being committed to it made it a success.

I feel like the pressure to have a majorly successful product day one means that smaller companies can't innovate the way they want to, so they have to find other ways to produce revenue. Huge companies, like Apple can afford to do both but still stumble, like with the vision pro. Maybe it'll be a success, but for now its not great and iteration makes it more difficult to maintain the original vision.

[-] TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, Apple was able to fall on their faces with the Lisa but still get to the Macintosh and greatness.

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[-] Justas@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago

"If you have the patience to sit by the river and wait, eventually, the corpses of your enemies will float by." Sun Tzu

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

"Don't interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake."

[-] KrapKake@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

The "do nothing and win" strategy.

[-] Snowclone@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

His plan isn't based off trying to squeeze blood from stones, it's to sell some video games. Not a very capitalist mindset, but there you have it.

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[-] Talaraine@fedia.io 2 points 5 months ago

'Not sucking'

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[-] Integrate777@discuss.online 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Private company with long-term strategy VS public company chasing short-term profits to pump stock prices for shareholders.

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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
121 points (99.2% liked)

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